Welcome back to our Friday blog on tips for employee retention. This week we are looking at career development and training. You can check back every Friday for a new tip on employee retention.
Career development and training are related strategies that both increase the ability for employees to contribute to an organization and allow employees to increase their skills benefiting their career goals.
Career development is enabling employees to design, explore, and plan their career to fulfil their potential and add value to the organization’s mission. Career development is an ongoing learning process for employees. It is a strategic method for organizations to sustain and develop their staff to remain current and competitive.
Training is advancing skills through courses and experiences. Training is aimed at building upon needed competencies in order to achieve goals of the employee and the organization. Through up-skilling, employees are then more prepared to take on new roles or additional work for the organization.
When organizations offer employees career development and training to advance skills needed for a position desired within the organization, employees will be appreciative and know that the organization is committed to their career success.
Benefits for an Organization
There are numerous benefits that can occur from investing in career development and training for your employees. Here are just some of the main benefits:
- Build on existing skills and develop new skills
- Increases employee work satisfaction and meet employee job expectations
- Offers a selling point for recruitment and aids in retention
- Prepares employees for management succession
Preparing for Career Development and Training
An organization needs their employees to be sufficiently prepared to handle current and future work assignments and adapt to changing technological environments. As an employer, it is your responsibility to ensure employees are ready for their tasks, as it should not be left solely upon employees to anticipate. Employers should facilitate the following:
- Identifying both short and long-term development needs for the organization, and prioritize in order of importance.
- Research and know the full range of career development and training programs available to employees, and ensure that employees are aware of the opportunities available to them.
- Follow up with employees undergoing career development or training to check that employees are on the right track.
- Assist employees to incorporate new skills acquired into the organization.
- Budget and plan for career development and training.
Development and Training Areas
Career development and training can be used in several different areas for an organization.
Academic history — this includes reviewing employees’ formal qualifications to decide if the organization and employee will benefit from future academic development, such as obtaining further certificates, diplomas, or higher postgraduate level courses.
Technical expertise — required for new positions or management succession, technical training can include courses in health and safety, computer software, professional writing, technical areas, information technology, and many more job specific courses.
Interpersonal skills such as communication, teamwork, and personal effectiveness — training employees in these areas can increase productivity and employee satisfaction. These “soft skills” can be facilitated through short one or two-day courses, in company training programs, or web-based programs.
Business management, and leadership skills — needed for future management succession and improving existing management and leadership skills. Training and development can include short courses, in company training, and mentoring programs.
Start Implementing Programs
It can be a challenge to invest in your employees’ development and at the same time maintain regular work needs. It is important for employers to start small and start with thinking carefully about the organization’s goals and objectives, while offsetting these with the strengths and weaknesses of staff. By having a clear understanding of the knowledge and skills for a position, and how well the job needs to be done, this will give you the information that is needed to make development and training decisions. Also look at current and past performance issues, especially issues that are recurring. Addressing these issues with development and training will improve the organization and increase employees’ productivity.
Individual and organizational needs assessments are great tools for researching viable career development and training options. Individual needs assessments review employees’ current skills and skills that will be needed in the future. Then take a broader approach and develop an organizational needs assessment which reviews current skills across the organization and skills needed to achieve long term organizational goals.
Here are some more effective ideas you can implement easily:
- Host workshops showing employees how they can grow within the organization, and show them practical career development activities.
- Provide examples and career paths of employees who have been with the organization for long tenures on the company human resources webpage.
- Provide a formal mentor-mentee network for employees to engage in structured career planning and to provide informal professional support and career advice.
By offering career development and training, you are placing your organization in a position to remain competitive and fulfil long-term goals. Plus, the organizations that are committed to employee development and training will keep staff motivated and highly trained, and in turn, this will have a positive effect on retention.
Join us next week as we look into the topic of employee selection.
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